So, how
allow
here now?
When then?
Then again,
here’s when.
Where we’re
‘ere there?
We’re here.
Always
a way
in a day.
(February 16, 2015)
-
-
insomnia
Any movement in dream wakes;tussled sleep and misery nestlelike cats unto my chest kneadingthe tissue near the heart searchingfor what scraps of love remain.(February 15, 2015) -
love’s ramble
by
“I choose to drift”– roland barthesI walk to the sideaskew to my directiona de-centered shuffledrifting along its edgetoo often I snarllike knots in threadindecipherablein my large handsto be understoodto stitch my tongueto the patchworkwords I speak to yourequires time to pauseits unrelenting desireand unfold the obviouslike now in a dull mirrorreflection unloosenstime’s razored focuslacerating the edgesalong my peripheryas each moment slursa stumbled lurchan aphasia betweenwhat I want to say -
translate the past
by
“the fulfilled lover has no need to write”-Roland Barthesnot a want but a needlike air or waterthe drive to writeto spell oneselfinto the bookto conjure eachtick mark upona page to accountthe sum of whatcould be extantbeyond memorywhich is itselfa desirefor the occultof what wasforgottenin the wordswe spoketo each otherthat last day(February 12, 2015) -
which gestures which words
“most of my injuries came from stereotypes”-Roland Barthesher easy conversation formeda trope he became enamored ofwhich transcended her absenceinto auras like pockets he couldplace bits of string and pebblesphrases she said a tilt of her headsmall fetishes for his reliquarywithout consequence beyondspaces to occupy his anxietythe troubled suppositions of what ifcascading in avalanches of dreadabout him until he became lostin the quandaries of meaningembedded within which gestureswhich words she might have said(February 11, 2015) -
words
by
I go to books now for solaceand some indication of place“you problemitize everything”a peer in grad school saidI wondered how other’s suretyarrived to them so casuallythis is the way things areor the vile it is what it isas if clarity could be achievedthrough such obtuse phrasesso I return to my booksparsing out some nuancehoping within a poet’s clauseI will stumble upon a clueand I’ll find the right wordto make it all cohereand I’ll find the right wordto say to you(February 10, 2015) -
Still Life with Figures
“Now, absence can exist only as a consequence of the other: it is the other who leaves, it is I who remain.”– – Roland BarthesA set stage opensprovision to quick changes,poses without postures.Within each moment’sa tableaux: any movement,like time, but a coincidence.As a pause before entering,he leans in the door way,studied in his nonchalance.Intrigued, his gaze holds her;she looks towards him,bemused, but unresponsive.Not quite the melodramatichand to the foreheadlanguishing back into a pillowon an overstuffed settee,yet – – her spirit persists,to which he still responds.The theater’s barren.Near the stage edge,he listens distantly,surprised by an echo:was that him, or her,he hears before turning away?The stage is empty;he’s the audience now.She is not present,except as absence.He’s always there;she never was.(February 9, 2015) -
the task at hand
to speak honestly without fearto slough off misunderstandingsto take a hammer to one’s beliefslike a statue’s plaster casts shatteredacross the sculptor’s studio floorto be a broom to this disasterto refuse the language that’s offeredto stand naked in the stormto scream one’s name backto change the sounds around usand any one else who daresto define us in their wordsthat is the task of the poetto exculpate the shreds of languageand make them whole again(February 7, 2015) -
Tracker
As broken ropesflail the wind,sentences unravelas I read.I cannot sustainthe unrelenting line.Only fragmentstorn from phrases,sinews flayedfrom the spine,rise into the airbefore melike smoke wispsfrom a dead fire.Easy enough nowto see the trailwhich led me here:this door opened,that door closed;before me,behind me.I entered, or not.Despite memory’sclarity, my choicescurrently run vaguebeneath hardened ice.I squat on the edgeof this river, andnote the cold marginsof my understandings.(February 5, 2015) -
The Library
by
“What do they knowand feel we do not know?”William C. Williams, PatersonI know only thisfaint glimmersof light in a linean unsourced shapewhat I bringto what I readwhat I take awaythe book remainswholeI’m changedbut incompleteour conversation’s our ownmy own your owneach hears a different voiceto a different earunderstanding’sa vague outlinea blurred pictureof you I carriedbut lost years ago(February 4, 2015) -
Memory is Revision
by
Honestly, we should speakas if our tongues lay alonga razor’s edge, and each sidestep in the dance we playglistens the floor with blood.Memory shimmers, translucentand porous, dragging stoicallythrough you, as if it were a net,you the sea, and I, hapless,caught from within your heart.So much is left behind, let go;I don’t know what to say anymorethan I did before, but have lessfaith it matters if you knew, or know,how much I was in love with you.(February 3, 2015) -
Always Already Here
by
memory serves no master outside herselfwithout control the story heard tremblesand loops like a river bends and shiftsthrough the soft sand banks which pretendtoward a definition of our edges for yearson end until an eternity is washed awaybeneath the redemptive waters scrubbingthe landscape clean under an alluvial floodwhere all our traces are erased and the earthwakes to memory whispering her song anewas if she spoke into an echo of what should bealready etched through our veins in calligraphichelixes which bend back to carve primal lettersalong the walls affixing us safely within ourselves(February 2, 2015) -
harmony
“and sings the tune without the words –and never stops – at all –“Emily DickinsonDespite, or perhaps because, ofthe discordant stormsof all my falderaland paranoia drowningQuiet as if it werea sack of cats,I hold stillwithin my hearta space, a momentbetween the opened pulse,beyond unfulfilled nostalgia,where we can come,like nightingales to a nest,togetherwithout words.(February 1, 2015)
subtext 